Israel released 369 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday in exchange for three Israeli hostages as part of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
Many of the Palestinian detainees showed signs of malnutrition and poor health, according to media reports.
Among those freed was Mansour Muqaddah, from Salfit in the occupied West Bank, who spent 23 years of his life sentence in Ramla prison.
Muqaddah is paralyzed from the waist down due to injuries sustained during his arrest in 2002, and parts of his intestines remain outside his body, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.
Live footage from Ramla showed an elderly man being carried on a stretcher into a Red Crescent ambulance before heading to Gaza.
Before their release, Israel’s Prison Service made Palestinian prisoners wear shirts that read “We Won’t Forget, We Won’t Forgive,” in Arabic.
The three Israeli hostages freed in the exchange—Alexander Trufanov, Sagui Dekel-Chen, and Yair Horn—were handed over to the Red Cross in Khan Younis and appeared to be in good health.
This is the sixth successful hostage exchange as part of the Israel-Hamas fragile truce, which eases fears that the ceasefire could sink before the end of a 42-day ceasefire.